Day 5 - I'm too sexy for my shirt...and the mother of all fire road climbs

Today started after 5 hours sleep, a skinful of booze and an almighty hangover.

Last night turned out to be a bit lairier than planned, all the same it was great fun. The chuckle brothers were out on it too and Paul (Dan) is having to sit out the riding as he cut his knee pretty badly yesterday so the stitches and swelling are stopping him from bending his leg so today I'm going to ride with Barry Chuckle (Jason) he's a bit quicker than me on the linking stages (much quicker than me on the descents) but the long breaks they take means we get back around the same time each day.

Breakfast was a bleary eyed affair. I felt super tired, ate a big breakfast once more, lots of coffee, banter about the previous nights shenanigans. I just wanted to go back to sleep, the thought of another 75km on the bike wasn't appealing to me add to that surprise surprised - 2400m of climbing! We were becoming used to the climbing now, it was just part of the routine. I'm sure my granny ring will need replacing pretty soon!

I'd changed my brake pads last night and the pistons needed to be pushed out, so after going back to bed for a few winks, I took it over to an equally bleary eyed Gareth from Cycle-Tec who sorted it out in seconds.

I was conscious that I was dehydrated from last night so tried to make an effort to drink plenty of water but my stomach was sick of digesting fluids! There were forecasts for really shitty weather today but we started the day with clear blue skies, and this is how it stayed all day. This wasn't the Wales I'd been told about.

So 9am we sat off, and straight into a 10km climb. This was just what I needed to clear my head, and you know what? It really was. After 20 minutes in the saddle I felt heaps better. The riding was once more pretty tough but also had lots of fun water splashes interspersed into it. The special stage today was the talk of the breakfast table earlier, with a 4km descent and a 4km "Leg Burner" fire road climb. In my head the fire road climb was the stage most suited to me. I'm a shit descender but give me a long nontechnical climb and I'm sorted.

There were tactics in the camp, people were sitting back in the group today to preserve their energy. Riders I rarely saw on the route were mingling with the mid packers. Just before the special stage, I saw someone changing their tyres to slicker ones.

The specials stage was only about 30k into the ride and just before lunch stop. Me and Jason had been having a really funny morning, piss taking and laughing all the way. We came round some gorgeous scenery, passing by reservoirs and open lakes then onto some singletrack then out onto Nant Yr Arian trail. I was nervous about the descent, but looking forward to hammering the climb.

We reached the timed section, where there was music blasting, Matt Carr (also hungover) was commentating, Michael Wilkens was starting off the riders. This section was a looped one, so there were people coming back in to the finish as people were starting off, the lunch stop was also here, so there were lots of people about making the atmosphere pretty cool.

Jason and I got in the queue to do our time trials, I set off first to Matt shouting "Smash it!" through the PA system, big ringed it on the fire road descent which took a left turn into a pretty tough fire road/rocky climb - I'd locked out my forks just before thinking it looked like it was just a fire road climb start but it was rockier than it looked, so unlocked and gave it some welly.

Jason soon came pissing past me, and started yelling at me to "Fucking Go!" after about 500m of climbing the course took a descent through some big water splashes, the last one absolutely soaking me from head to toe. I was almost on my minute man, and Jason just in front of me. I came round bend and found Jason off his bike wedged against the side of the mountain, I asked if he was OK, and faltered slightly not wanting to leave me wingman, he said he was fine so I carried on. The course then went onto a lovely piece of singletrack, narrow, twisty, a few berms, except I was a fucking joke. I was picking my way through it like I should have had a basket on the front. Don't get me wrong, I was still loving it, I was just impossibly slow. Three people behind me, over took in this section, When I finally got to the bottom of the descent it was straight onto the now infamous "Leg Burner"

My minute man immediately dismounted and started pushing - What the fuck? I locked out my suspension put my gear onto the middle ring and got myself ready for the climb. Keeping my cadence high and trying to keep the rhythm consistent I caught up with another rider. The climb, was fairly steady to begin with, then it was have the odd hard ramp up. I caught a guy who'd overtaken me on the descent, and another. I focused on the speed I was doing, keep it above this I said to myself, my lungs were busting and I was breathing hard, but my legs still felt good.

I had no idea how far up I'd gone so didn't know how hard to push, the road turned a corner and climbed steeper still I was almost caught up with the last guy who'd overtaken me, he looked round and obviously hadn't expected to see me, "where did those legs come from" - "I'm gash at descending" he encouraged me up the hill to try and go quicker, but he put more space between us, the course then hung a left and onto a brief bit of single track, I wasn't expecting it though, I quickly unlocked as a big rock appeared in front to pick my front wheel up over, quickly knocked it into the granny ring as once more it climbed , twisted and there 50 yards in front was the finish,. Just as I was having a bit of difficulty in the wrong gear, on an awkward rocky bit I thought I was going to have to get off and push the last few metres but I pedalled on up the last and over the line. Heaving and collapsed on the grass verge. When I'd got my breath back, I had a look around for Jason, but he was nowhere to be seen.

I got some lunch and sat down assuming he was still out on the time trial. Fifteen minutes later he appeared, it turned out the guy in front had jammed on the brakes right in front of Jase and the only way he could avoid crashing into him was pulling into the wall of the cliff denting his wheel in the process. He'd managed to almost straighten it out but they were tubeless so he had to put in a tube.

He said he'd get some lunch then we could go but I made him do the Time trial, I was getting a bit stiff being off the bike so long as I don't normally stop for this long but I didn't want him to miss out, so off he went, and I sat around chatting to people, when he came back, he got some lunch and sat down for a bit... I had been sat around now for over an hour and was getting bit anxious to get on, as we were only half way and we only had another 3 hours to get back before the cut off and looking at the profile it looked to be a slow final 35k.

Back on the bike my legs felt dead and empty. Shit. Straight into a big fire road climb, my legs just felt terrible. Shit. I had plenty of fuel on board so I didn't want to eat anything else. The road must go down soon, then my legs can have a bit of recovery.
The road continued to go up.
and up
and up some more
for 30km this fucking awful fireroad climbed.

As the afternoon went on, I became less and less fun to be around. Jason tried to make me laugh, it worked most of the time. My favourite was when he would randomly burst into song - singing "I'm too sexy for my shirt," by Right Said Fred.

I was really struggling this afternoon, the road just kept going up and up. How is this possible!!

15km of climbing later we got to the last feed station, I was in a shit mood. Bob from High5 said there was a bit of a climb left, then a descent, and we'd be back in about 15-20km.

Out of the feed station and the clock was running away without us, we were going to struggle to make the cut off! If you were back after the cut off, you got time penalties added to your overall time - everyone gets the same time you see but for each minute over the allotted time you go, they add on a second.

Round the corner, and there in front of us another fuck off climb! I has a massive tantrum, I growled and shouted. Poor Jason...

"I'm....too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt.." and a cheeky grin appeared next to me.

I managed to laugh, and apologise for being a brat. My legs were so empty I just wanted to cry and be back at the camp. I was struggling so badly, Jason made me swap bikes with him on the hard climbs and I had my bike back for the rare descents (which I was just hammering down in a vain attempt to get home quicker ) his bike was a lot lighter and quicker on the climbs than mine, even though I'd thought mine was fast and light.

The kilometers dragged by so slowly, we wove through more fireroads and up some more, through barren landscapes with enormous wind farms.

Climbing.

"I'm too sexy for my shirt..."

"I hate this afternoon!"

"so sexy it hurts!"

I loved him for trying, we finally reached the top of this bitch of a climb and stopped to take some pictures of the incredible view we were finally rewarded with. We were on top of the world, we could see the evil road which snaked up the mountain in a thin twisty line. Jason gave me some malt loaf and we carried on through the wind farms, finally a descent! We bumped into one of the marshals who said it was just 3 or 4km to go to the campsite.

"hurrah"

What he didn't say was that 1km of that was the worst climb yet! I swore, I rode a little way up it, resigned myself to the fact that I was running on empty and got off and pushed to the top.

A not very rewarding and windy descent back down and we were finally back!

At some point during the day Jason had agreed to putting on his Gillet back to front so it looked like a string vest and cross the line singing "I'm too sexy for my shirt"

He held his end of the bargain and did just that. I finished the stage with a smile on my face but mentally and physically exhausted.

I was pretty unhappy as I went to wash my bike off.

Today's campsite was in the middle of nowhere, 15 miles from civilisation, next to a stream, populated with millions and millions of midges, sitting in waiting to come out and eat us alive later.

Where Rob and Ryan were camped was miles (like 300m) from where the luggage lorry was so I got a lift on the quad with my stuff to where they were, put up my tent, sulked a bit at how terrible this afternoon had been, and disappointed that it had tarnished such a brilliant morning.

I showered, put up my tent (just before it started to rain a little) changed, went to find my wing man, said "sorry for being such a horrible cunt" had a beer with him and Dan and went to the medical tent with them to get Dan's dressing changed. The midges were now starting to get hungry  and were coming out in their thousands. Nasty little buggers.

We had dinner, I was really tired and subdued so not my normal self, after dinner was going to be the presentation of the days stage results, a bar and a band on to amuse us in the ass end of nowhere village we were.

We got some beers and waited for the presentation, I was chuffed to have got 3rd place in today's and got on the podium and won some Gore vouchers, then we went back to the drinking, the band came on who were brilliant. It was a great touch for the organisers to put this on.

About 10.30 the band finished, I was a bit pissed by now, sensible people sloped off to bed, leaving the usual suspects of about 8 of us to carry on the boozing into the night, Gareth put some tunes on the PA system and it ended up being another 1.30 bed time....